Cain exits first, sword at the ready, but Golems away. Use of combat skills is prohibited in the village. The others aren't there, the only person around is the man who helped power level him in the first dungeon.
"Rough day was it?" The large man chuckles, his dark colored plate armor shaking as he laughs. Don't worry, it's safe to come out. The Start From Zero Guild cleared everything up, but you and your friend might be a little famous for a while." He laughs.
Cain motions back that it's safe for Misha to exit and turns back to talk to the friendly adventurer. "So what happened?"
"They were caught instantly by a Start From Zero Guild member when they exited. He called in his guild to subdue them. Their policy is to take everything, gear, inventory and even coin, they loot criminals dry and then turn them in for reward, making them start all over without even a place to stay. They're a big guild, you'll find them almost everywhere in the Beginner zones." The guy, Cixelcid according to his system label, chuckles at the memory.
"The Joop42 guy tried to say you attacked them and stole a Grade A aura book from them, but all three were Red Flagged as the aggressors. But that means a lot of people know one of you got a spell book today, even if they don't believe it was Grade A " Cain curses under his breath and Misha sighs softly.
"Well, maybe we can keep clearing it just the two of us?" Misha suggests, gripping her white clerical robe in frustration. "That way we don't need to worry about getting turned against in the dungeon again?"
"Why don't we sit and talk? I've got a suggestion, if you two are game?" The big man suggests, pointing towards an empty coffee shop.
Grabbing coffees and snacks, they all head to a back corner both, well away from the doors. "I'm Cixelcid, but you can call me Cid." He smiles, knowing he got taken in by the gamer tag trap.
"Misha and Cain" Misha responds helpfully making him laugh at their very normal names.
"Have you told her about your aura?" Cain shakes his head and motions for him to continue.
"Well, Cain here has an EXP buff granted by his class, I was with him when he first grouped and found out it existed. Now, if your former party members are to be believed, Misha got the damage reduction aura?"
"So that's why we leveled up so fast" Misha says to herself, nodding that she indeed got the aura.
"I'd like to take you both on a few runs with my guild mates. You met the rogue, Stubby and then there's a Succubus species Sorceress named Lickity. Both are crafters by preference, but the higher end crafting abilities are level locked, so I'm going to power level them to 20, and it would be great if you could help."
"I don't see why not. You helped me when you found out my ability, and didn't try to be a douchebag." Cain smiles, looking over the Tank. He's got to be 195cm tall, and heavily muscled under all that black plate armor he's wearing. His long black hair is pretty common, but the bright red eyes are not. Cain uses the inspect function of his system interface and finds that indeed, Cixelcid is not a human here. His species is listed as Vampire.
"Excellent. Just, um, try not to speak about Lickity's outfit. You two might not know, as you're fairly new here and haven't tried on much, but the transfers are cursed to only use class specific items and costume type clothing."
"Yeah, I tried wearing pants and a hoodie and I physically couldn't put them on." Misha says. "Something stopped me."
"Good, you understand then. A Succubus species clothing options are all leather and lace, pretty scandalous. The Sorceress class gets a bit more clothing than most, but she's sensitive about it and makes herself the least revealing options."
Cain can only imagine what she might be suffering, most game systems have Succubus as a borderline R18 option. And she has to live with those and only those clothing options.
"So she's a tailor? I've got a bunch of materials to make an upgraded robe, but couldn't find one in town" Misha is getting excited.
"We can talk to her, I'm sure she'll help out between runs." Cid assures her "Myself I picked what everyone here calls the Blood Tank. The Vampire race gets 3 percent of their damage back as healing, and I picked Berserker class, which can also get healing on damage, at a random chance on hit. It's a DPS class without defensive skills, but if you luck out and get a book or two you can Tank fairly well."
"You picked a Surprisingly sensible combination" Cain laughs. "Who does that in the situation we were in?"
"It's my favorite combination. Self healing dps class. Plus, I was drunk and thought I'd bought a new game."
Cain is almost in tears of laughter at this point. "That's exactly what happened to me. But I thought random character creation was a Gatcha spin and then couldn't turn back."
"Is that why you're so big?" Misha asks curious. "The berserker class?"
"Yup, not every species can take the class, but of the ones that can, they're always huge. This is nearly minimum size for a vampire berserker, as vampire race increases your height and Berserker increases your bulk."
"At least it didn't make you drink only blood or burn in the sunlight" Cain chuckles.
"I get a debuff in direct sunlight" Cid shrugs, "But there's no blood requirement, thankfully."
"So you're good to meet the group in the morning?" Cid asks and they both shake his hand, sealing the agreement.
"Great, see you here just after first light. With luck we can do two in a day, I'm level 34 now, and my damage is high."
"Sounds good. I'm up to 4 little Golems and a big one now that I've made level 20."
"The Sorceress gets a crow, it's not much use, just scouts around, but it counts as a construct, so it should activate your ability."
"Care to explain this ability?" Misha asks once Cid is gone, so Cain turns off the hidden option for the skill and lets her see the buff notification.
"20 percent for every party member and construct? That's insane. At the higher levels you'll have a small army, and they'll all buff your experience."
"Not just me. Everyone in the party. This seems to be the speed run companion class." Cain smiles, looking forward to tomorrow. 220 percent bonus experience is going to rock.